MAKEwild: Unleash your creative wild side
by Mia Villarreal, 2024 Education Graduate Teaching Fellow, Blanton Museum of Art
Draw. Tear. Trace. Tape. Color. Collage. Weave.
Explore your wild side through JULMstudios’ MAKEwild stations at the Blanton Museum of Art! Design, craft, and art intersect with MAKEwild, opening up an artmaking space for drawing, collage, and weaving that encourages intergenerational creativity and collaboration for all ages. Pick up a prompt card for initial inspiration and venture into the unknown, discovering the exciting possibilities of what you can imagine and create.
Take risks! Try ripping paper in half. Combine different materials and make a multimedia work of art.
The beginning of an idea for a great project can grow from anywhere. For Jason Urban and Leslie Mutchler (JULMstudios), MAKEwild emerged from their backgrounds as both artists and teachers where they experienced how the tactile nature of creating and manipulating materials unearths a completely new realm of arts engagement. This past academic year, I have been the recipient of the Blanton’s Graduate Teaching Fellowship. With this opportunity in the Education Department, I’ve been able to experience the countless ways art education can enrich the overall growth and learning experience of visitors of all ages and backgrounds. During MAKEwild’s installation, I was able to meet and talk with the artists about MAKEwild’s beauty as an artwork and as a lively space for artmaking as well.
As former faculty at the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Art and Art History, Urban and Mutchler have long been involved on UT’s campus from 2008 to 2018. Mutchler ran the Art and Art History Core Program while at UT, and Urban started the Riso Room Service Bureau for the Department of Art and Art History. The pair began working collaboratively in 2012, and they currently are affiliated with the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
MAKEwild’s concepts and themes organically grew out of a previous collaboration between Mutchler and the Blanton during JULMstudios’ time as UT faculty. In 2014, Mutchler developed a temporary pilot project for the Blanton, known as the WorkLAB Satellites. Connecting with MAKEwild, the WorkLAB Satellites were also a work of art that allocated space for artmaking for museum visitors. Revisiting the WorkLAB Satellites’ popularity in preparation for MAKEwild, Urban and Mutchler devised a more permanent installation that would root itself in the Michener Gallery Building.
Ascending the staircase to the second floor of the Blanton’s galleries, MAKEwild’s Drawing and Textile Stations welcome visitors with ample space for artmaking. MAKEwild’s array of creative activities allows for many entry points for all visitors.
“It’s designed to engage all ages and abilities – young or old, experienced or inexperienced,” says Mutchler, “There are prompts that are intended for little hands and also the more sophisticated maker in all of us. In the end, people can choose to follow along or go rogue.”
Sit down and take time to weave fabric loops or paper strips at the weaving board, or grab a friend and tear off a piece of drawing paper to collaborate on a large scale work of art. MAKEwild provides an environment where we can collectively dream, make, and inspire.
“We love the idea of a grandparent and their grandchild working together on something next to a college student with time between classes, or a UT staff person on their lunch break,” says Urban, “It’s for everyone.”
MAKEwild is not only an exciting space for artmaking – It’s also a unique, unreplicatable space designed specially for the Blanton. The stations’ designs and color schemes directly respond to iconic Blanton artworks, such as Teresita Fernández’s Stacked Waters and Thomas Glassford’s Siphonophora, along with the rhythmic arches seen throughout the Blanton’s architecture. Custom designed acrylic stencils adorn the stations, resembling aquatic forms and ocean life that you could envision swimming within the shimmering, swirling waves of Stacked Waters’ acrylic panels. 3D printed fungi sprout from the walls of the stations; some hold art supplies, while fungi closer to the floor serve as touch points for curious young explorers. Transparent blue acrylic pegs incorporated into the design also allude to the sensations of light, movement, and drifting within the ocean of Stacked Waters and the Blanton’s atrium. Perforated ceiling panels on MAKEwild reference the dappled sunlight that radiates through Snøhetta’s outdoor petal canopy during a sunny day out on the Moody Patio.
MAKEwild draws “parallels between the natural world as a place of exploration and risk taking and the act of making art which also involves exploration and risk. And the color stories tie into the natural world through a historical and metaphorical framework and language of pigments, elements and forms of the natural world,” says Mutchler.
At the Textile Station, Urban and Mutchler introduce materials with curated color palettes, labeled ‘color stories.’ The three color stories rotating through the station are cool toned Water + Air, warm toned Clay + Cochineal, and earth toned Shrubs + Stone. The Drawing Station’s paper materials, such as the Riso prints, also evoke the natural world through their patterns, designs, and colors reminiscent of foliage and landscape.
With selective limitations on artmaking at the stations, artists at MAKEwild are invited to experiment with materials and tools they might otherwise not initially choose for their projects.
“By carefully selecting particular materials, we create limitations for anyone who engages with the project. That said, people will invariably find ways to push or stretch the materials in unexpected ways- and that’s the wild within making – that with a little decision here and another move there – anything can become anything,” says Mutchler.
As a Gallery Teaching Fellow, I have spent many hours guiding K-12 students through the Blanton’s gallery spaces. During my gallery lessons, I lead small groups of students to a variety of artworks where we actively draw, write, and ask questions. Through these activities, I encourage students to approach artwork from multiple perspectives, to find personal connections with the work, and to be curious about how art can help us learn more about the world and people around us. MAKEwild’s accessibility to visitors allows people to expand upon their museum experience, spend as much time as they desire in the stations, take inspiration from others around them, and potentially converse with someone seated nearby. With the introduction of MAKEwild to the Blanton, I am thrilled to have another opportunity to enhance creativity, open a new space for inquiry and exploration, and engage with visitors that thrive off of a tactile learning experience in the museum.